Why a Website for your Massage Business?
November 29, 2008 by Julie Onofrio
Filed under Massage Websites, News
This post officially starts the month of posts and articles on how and why you should use your website to build your massage business. While there are many various ways and hosting platforms you can use to build a site, most of them don’t do anything to get your site found nor does it teach you how to write and create content that will also help you get conversions (visitors to your site that either become clients or put money in your pocket in someway!)
The web is the one place where you can get away with not having a specialty in massage. Most massage therapists just want to do massage and work with a variety of clients – pregnancy massage, sports massage, deep tissue massage, injury massage or whatever is in your tool box of techniques. When you do other types of marketing it is best to have a target market or a specific technique or population that you want to market to otherwise it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. With a website you can target everyone who is looking for massage in your city/town because that is the way that most people search for a massage therapist in your area. When you get your site to the top of the search engines you already have willing and able clients who are looking for massage. They aren’t necessarily looking for you but when they find your site easily by searching for ‘massage, your city’ they will already have more trust in you because they did not find you in an ad which sometimes leaves people feeling like they are being given a sales pitch.
So there are many services that offer websites for massage therapists. You can find free hosting or low cost hosting such as using officelive.com or use a blog format such as www.webnode.com. You can also set up a simple site using ez-web-hosting.com which comes with a simple template system and easy to use page creators. I use them for this site and blog. I have written some information on how to set up a blog with their severs on one of my sites www.workless-playmore.com (which I use Site Build it! to build that site). Setting up a blog is really simple but you also need to know what plugins and accessories to use to get the site found. My site also covers just about everything you need to know about getting your site found by search engines. Most of everything I know, I just learned from Site Build it!
The hosting and business development system that I recommend is Site Build it! For no other reason than it just works to get a site to the top of the search engines. It is also more than just a hosting system. It teaches you everything you need to know about creating a business online or offline.
But it really isn’t for everyone. I started out 10 years ago with free hosting and learned as I went along. SBI! does take some time to learn and understand but the results are well worth it.
And this month only I am offering my services to get your site up and running. I will build 8 pages for you to start with and plan our your site and teach you how to build the pages yourself when you buy an SBI! package – but heres the thing- Don’t buy it now! Yes that’s right! Wait until a few weeks before Christmas when SBI! has their annual sale that is worth waiting for. (I have been waiting all year to start a few new sites!) You will be able to buy one SBI! for the usual ($299 a year – and the price hasn’t changed in 5 years!) and get the second one for absolutely FREE! It is an incredible offer that they only offer once a year. You can use one site for your massage business and one to brainstorm and develop a site that will make you additional income or like my sites half of your income and even more if you put more time into it!
What would you create a second site on? Whatever you are passionate about and know alot about. SBI! comes with a piece of software that helps you brainstorm a niche or concept for your site and helps you research it’s profitability potential. Know alot about chair massage- how to do it, create a chair massage company, promote chair massage, do chair massage? That would be a great topic.
Know about growing herbs, eating gluten free, your area or city that you live? Create a site on it!
Not sure how you will make money? Most of my online income comes from Google Adsense. It is a program that Google has that allows you to put their ads on your site and when someone clicks on an ad – you get paid. There is even a tool that will give you and idea of how much clicks are getting. Massage schools is one of the highest with them paying about $15-$20 per click but you don’t get that amount. You get a small percentage (that no one really knows how much) so the way you can make money is by having lots of pages with content on them about massage schools (or your topic) and getting lots of traffic. My site that I just sold massagetherapycareers.com was getting about 300-500 people a day. This site gets about 2500 -3000 people a day – so you get the idea. Lots of pages of content + lots of traffic = $$$$$. The more pages and traffic the more the money. The more sites you have that have a lot of pages and content the more money you get!
Having an additional source of income is just basic self care. The more you have coming in and in savings the more you can begin to create your ideal massage practice and not be a slave to low paying jobs like Massage Envy or other places. The more you have in the way of financial support, the more you can choose who you want to work on leaving the draining clients who show up late or miss their appointments and don’t want to pay for their sessions for someone else. It will allow you to raise your rates more comfortably and make what you are worth knowing that when you raise your rates you may lose a few clients. Charging more and doing more massages on the people that you want to work with the most is just again basic self care.
So if you do want to still start a free site or a low cost site, I suggest that you read and follow the SBI! action guide that comes in written or manual form which is available for anyone to read for free at any time.
or take the SBI! Video tour to get a better idea of what it is all about.
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I worked for a similar company to ME, in fact I think it may be the rival. I don’t know how you think we as therapists could make $30k a year. I was lucky to get any bookings at all. My bosses read “massage for dummies” and thought they were experts, when I was the one who had gone to school to learn this trade. They did not want to pay me to be there if I had nothing on my book. I am trained in Relaxation, Therapeutic, Hot Stone, Chair and Reiki. They would not give me clients who were in pain. I don’t know why, but they thought “deep tissue” was the cure for everything. It was a very disappointing and eye opening experience as a therapist looking to work steadily. I also didn’t care for the “Rating System” of pressure you could give a client during a massage. I am able to actually hurt some people with deeper pressure, yet I was rated between 1 & 2…very low on the scale.
I have since left and found a day spa & salon that appreciates my abilities and is willing to help me build a clientele. I do continue to work on my business and hope to one day be able to work on my own.
Thank you Julie for sharing your knowledge with us and for all you do to lend a helping hand to those of us starting out on our own.
Liz
http://www.lizshealinghands.com
It isn’t that I am bashing ME but telling people that they could be making 2-3x that with doing half the amount of massage and putting time into marketing and networking. I am telling massage therapists that they are worth much more than that if they are willing to believe in themselves.
I also wonder how they will hold up under economic challenges. Since they only provide relaxation massage for the most part and in general very badly at that will people still go there? I have personally been to a few massage envy’s and the therapists that I have had don’t pay attention to what they are doing and don’t know how to address specific tension areas that I specifically asked to be worked on.
Julie
Why not try promoting your business without bashing the most successful therapeutic massage business in history-Massage Envy?
With therapists being able to earn $30k-$40k per year with absolutely no expenses except 2-3 shirts and liability insurance which every therapist should have but few independent therapists do, a licensed massage therapist can earn a very respectfull living at any of over 500 Massage Envy clinics.
Perfect . An excellent article on the importance of every massage therapist having a website. Granted having a site is only the beginning, but it’s a good start.
How to set up a successful site is paramount to making it worth your time, energy, and effort. I see far to many massage site’s that are actually a turn-off to clients rather than an incentive to seek out their services.
Learning how & what to do can really benefit any business but especially a good massage therapist.
Michael Kocis
http://www.prescottlmt.com